banco de gaia, aka toby marks, has always been known for his
wide-ranging influences and his latest album, igizeh, carries on the
trend. as he told us in a mini interview a couple of months ago, banco has
always had his music labelled as 'world' or 'ambient' so what's he doing with
two tracks on a 'chillout' collection, and are these labels at all appropriate
for his music?

"what i do is a combination of the different things i
like," banco begins, "so labels like 'world' are part of the picture
but not the whole. at the moment i seem to keep being described as 'trance'
which can really only apply to certain aspects of certain tunes. i prefer to
think of it as
'global-ambient-techno-dub-with-a-hint-of-minimalisation-and-western-classical-combined-with-the-timeless-beauty-of-the-panpipe'!

"it's good to see the gentler side of electronic music is
fashionable again," reflects banco, "although i'm not sure how long it
will last.

the two banco de gaia tracks you can hear on the 'chillout'
album - b2and glove puppet - are from igizeh, and they may
not be what you expect, as banco explains: "both tracks are from the slower
end of the spectrum, but the album ranges from totally ambient to more
dancefloor moments."

as these tracks are slower, this obviously has an effect on
banco's music-making technique, especially as glove puppet features
vocals, courtesy of jennifer folkes. "glove puppet is a departure
for me," banco explains. "it was surprisingly easy to get the vocal
performance down, but that was more to do with finding the right singer for the
song. the string arrangement involved starting with some basic chords then
playing about with solo lines to build them up.

"b2 was based more around the groove, although the end
result might hide that. it started with ideas involving a big kick drum
and just developed in a fairly random way until the combination of sounds and
samples made sense."

living live

over the summer, banco played at various festivals and live
gigs, so how does his mac-based set-up change from studio to stage? "i used
to take pretty much the whole studio on the road and run it from a powerbook,"
banco begins, "but after a while i got sick of carting around 1,000kg of
equipment just so i had the option of changing the level of the marimba in a
chorus or something.

"recently i've been submixing the main elements of eight
tracks of adat which still gives us a degree of control over the mix but allows
all my kit to fit in the back of a car! as i'm now playing a lot more guitar and
guitar synth on stage, i don't need so much control over every detail of the
mix. i'm now planning to get rid of the adat and run all the audio from the
laptop."

and is there any difficulty in balancing the live stuff with
studio work? "not really," he smiles, "although there comes a
point where i have to start turning down gigs and stay in the studio for a
while. i've always been a live player, so i will never give it up, but obviously
i have to make time to write new material too."

gearing up

despite the reliance on the macs, banco's favourite bit of gear
comes as a surprise. "if i could have one thing," banco muses,
"it would be an acoustic guitar, although logic might be the thing i missed
most. the roland samplers i still love but i have to stay they are starting to
really look old compared to the latest akais and emus, and software samplers
too, but they still sound superb. (anyone from roland reading this? bring out a
new one before i have to swap sides!)"

knowing what a workaholic banco is, it's no shock to know that
the man is heading straight back to the studio already. so are there any secrets
he wants to share with us? a new project? a hint on what the next album's going
to sound like?

"i'll tell you when it's finished!" banco jokes.
"i am also toying with the idea of going abroad to do some writing, to see
how a change of scene affects what i come up with. and i am planning to work
with more live musicians. hang on, didn't i say that before each of the last
three albums? well, we'll see, but i certainly want to work with singers again
and so some more songs with proper english words."

selected kit list

alesis midiverb

aleses quadraverb

apple mac g4 running logicaudio

apple mac powerbook

boss se-70

clavia nord lead

joemeek vc3

kork ms2000

roland jupiter 8

roland sh-09

various guitars

credits

reproduced without permission from future
music (issue 115). to be used for private and research use only.